Victoria Park Fall Reflections, Kitchener ON Canada

A n October walk through Kitchener’s Victoria Park, featuring scenic views and waterside autumn leaf reflections. Described as a natural jewel in downtown Kitchener, Victoria Park was constructed in 1894 on 11 hectares ( 28 acres ) of land adjacent to Schneider Creek, purchased by the Town of Berlin ( renamed after the late British Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, in September 1916) from Samuel B. Schneider, a descendant of early Pennsylvania-German settler Joseph Schneider, whose 1820 homestead stands nearby as Schneider Haus National Historic Site . The park’s lake was excavated in two years for the park’s opening o n August 27, 1896. The oldest items in the park are two cannons, borrowed in 1895 from Militia Stores, Kingston Ontario. One stands on Roos Island overlooking Victoria L ake; the other is at the Queen Victoria statue. The 1896 Roos Island bandstand was replaced by a square structure in early 1950. That one was subsequently replaced in 1985 with a near-replica of the original 1896 octagonal design. The original wooden Pavilion opened on August 15, 1902. It was destroyed by an unknown arsonist on March 24, 1916. Mayor L. O. Breithaupt opened i ts brick replacement on August 7, 1924. The 1929 two storey boathouse was damaged in an electrical fire on February 4, 1967; it was restyled and renovated, later becoming a music venue and restaurant . The clock tower near the Gaukel Street entrance formerly surmounted Kitchener’s old city hall (1924-1973). The tower, dismantled during the city hall’s controversial demolition, was stored in a city lot for twenty years until rebuilt as a federally-funded retraining initiative with the support of the Waterloo, Wellington, Dufferin and Grey Building and Construction Trades Council and Conestoga College. Mayor Richard Christie unveiled the iconic clock tower on July 1, 1995. Controversy has dogged two park statues. The Friedensfest 1871 Denkmal (Peace Festival 1871 Memorial), surmounted by a 1.3 metre high bust of German Kaiser Wilhelm I, was unveiled on August 13, 1897 to commemorate the 25 th anniversary of the original May 2, 1871 Berlin (Ontario) festival celebrating the German victory in the 1871 Franco-Prussian War and the end of major 19 th century European hostilities. The bust was vandalized and tossed into the lake on August 2 3 , 1914 by three (or four) local men . Retrieved three weeks later and stored for safe-keeping at the Concordia Club, it was stolen by a military-civilian mob on February 15, 1915 and disappeared, allegedly melted down . To quell local wartime divisions , the Parks Board ordered its base destroyed and removed on March 1 st , 1916. With the city’s approval, the German-Canadian Business and Professional Association rebuilt the Peace Memorial’ s granite base , sans bust but with an explanatory plaque on the park’s centenary in 1996. The 1910 bronze statue of Queen Victoria was unveiled by Governor-General Earl Grey o n May 29, 1911. Its base bears two inscriptions. The first says, “Victoria, Queen, Empress, / A Model Wife and Mother. / Beloved, Admired, Revered, / She Shall Live In The / Hearts of Her People.” The second says, “Erected by / the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, / Princess of Wales Chapter, / Berlin 1909.” It was vandalized with red paint o n July 1, 2021, and again (with the addition of the slogan “Every Child Matters”) on August 14, 2021, in outrage a bout Canada’s colonial history in the 2021 discover ies of 215 unmarked indigenous children’s graves at the K amloops (British Columbia) Indian Residential School (1893-1978) and 751 unmarked graves at the Marieval (Saskatchewan) Indian Residential School (1898-1997) . In response to demands to remove the park’s controversial namesake statue, city council posted a sign at the statue on October 14, 2021 which says, in part, " This statue of Queen Victoria was installed in 1911. Since that time, much has been learned about the history of colonialism in Canada. The cultural harm and erasure inflicted on First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples is a direct result of this colonialism. The City of Kitchener acknowledges that the presence of this statue in Victoria Park may contribute to that ongoing harm." Renewal and replication have largely preserved the park’s Victorian period charm; controversy has marked its two public statues. Throughout, the park’s administration continues to adapt Victoria P ark to Kitchener’s evolving cultural landscape .

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